


The Arena

by oOAchilliaOo



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 05:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10633125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oOAchilliaOo/pseuds/oOAchilliaOo
Summary: Shepard fights alone in the Armax Arsenal arena but sadly it seems the simulation can’t quite keep up with her.Kaidan reckons he can fix that.





	

Kaidan leaned back, resting more comfortably against the console, and tried to revel in the rare opportunity he seemed to have been afforded. It was true, he didn’t normally get to watch Shepard fight, at least not without also dodging his own bullets and firing his own shots, but he also couldn’t deny that this was hardly how he’d planned to spend the evening.

Honestly, the days just seemed to slip by on shore leave. Even though he’d been kind-of-sort-of-but-not-really-officially living with her since they’d arrived, he occasionally felt the need to visit his own allocated apartment. He’d headed over to Shepard’s apartment sometime in the late afternoon, and they’d proceeded to order sushi, with all the associated ‘fish tank’ related jokes. After that he had planned to make good and proper use of the hot tub in her bathroom. Frankly, he thought it a crime that she’d been living there nearly a week and yet they still hadn’t managed to both be naked in it at the same time. 

But then the call had come through.

Some news/documentary makers were looking for footage of Shepard fighting the Reapers. He hadn’t really bothered to look at who exactly, but they’d had high enough clearance to have access to the real combat footage, which was apparently ‘unfit for purpose’. Not that he was surprised by that. Anything captured from their omni-tools or HUDs was always basically indistinguishable unless you’d been there.

Not to mention that the numerous and extensive explosions tended to make filming around Shepard particularly difficult.

But the company were making some kind of promotional vid to help inspire the civilians and front-line solders. So they’d asked if Shepard would be willing to face the Reapers, single-handed, in the Armax Arsenal arena, in the hope that they could cut the match footage with the real footage and produce something useful.

She’d agreed immediately, of course she had. Anything she could do to see her troops fit, healthy and willing to fight, and to keep hope alive in the hearts of the civilians, she’d do it. He knew she carried so much of this war on her shoulders. Somehow she seemed to think that she was responsible for all of it. Not just her Normandy and her mission to unite the races, but all of it. Every soldier, every civilian, every single death she heard about, she carried on her own shoulders just because she was the one who discovered the Reapers.

He couldn’t deny that she’d become the most prominent symbol of the war. The most easily-visible rallying cry and yes, he agreed in principle that she should do everything she could to use her status to inspire those who needed it.

But to take every death on her shoulders, answer every call, was too much to expect, even from her.

This, at least, she seemed to be enjoying. She’d picked a map that looked like so many of the bases they’d already fought through, making it easier to match the footage. Being Shepard, she’d picked the highest level Reaper troops to fight, then she’d taken off every aid and safety too.

He watched from the central programming box as she vaulted over the cover she’d been hiding behind and fired three perfectly placed shots at the marauder on her right, before shoving the butt of her assault rifle into the nearest cannibal’s gut. He dropped like a stone and seconds later, out came the omni-blade. The cannibal burst into spots of holographic light as she drove the blade down through his shoulder.

She looked just the tiniest bit… disappointed? Probably due to the fact that there was no spectacular shower of blood before she dashed towards the next group. She raced across the map, getting her boot up onto one of the ledges designed to offer the perfect amount of cover before leaping from it and somersaulting into the air. At the height of her jump she fired, popping each of the husks below her in the exact centre of their foreheads.

Wait… was she doing trick shots?

Trick shots.

Really?

Was she really that un-challenged by the arena that she felt the need to spice things up with trick shots?

He watched as she leapt again, delivering a roundhouse kick to the nearest cannibal before landing in that classic superhero pose with one knee on the ground. She took a moment to look up at the swarm headed her way. Then the pistol rose. Shots were fired. Bursts of holographic lights appeared.

“End of round two,” the VI intoned.

It took only a moment for him to process the fact that, while the trick shots and superhero poses would all look very dashing to the average civilian, the front-line soldiers would hardly be convinced by such a display. And he knew that it was them that she was most keen to inspire.

He came to a decision almost immediately.

“Move,” he ordered the technician. He was pointless really. All he’d done was set the standard programme running and made sure that nothing went awry. Clearly he didn’t appreciate what calibre of soldier they were playing.

“But…” the man began in protest. Kaidan merely tapped the Spectre logo on his jacket and quickly flashed his credentials as proof.

The man moved rather hastily after that. Who knew there were so many benefits to being a Spectre? 

He took a seat at the console, eyes running over the various displays and buttons before him. It looked in every way like a standard interface except… bigger. But that was okay. Bigger was probably good. Better actually, more choices.

First things first, he thought, surveying the options before him. He raised the enemy combat capability, added some actual punch to their biotic attacks and upped their intelligence, making them stay in groups and behind cover more often. Then as the auto clock countdown kicked in, he set the standard programme running with one hand, while he set to the real work with the other.  
He gave her just enough time to adjust to the new parameters he’d set, watching her on the digital display before him. A confused expression crossed her face briefly before she adapted to the increased toughness of her enemy.

Let’s see how you handle this then, he thought with a wry smile as he entered the next set of commands into the console. A large group of husks appeared on her right flank, swarming with a surprisingly realistic version of their strange gait. She immediately turned to face them, as he knew she would. As soon as she was fully engaged he ordered the other group, made up of a shielded marauder and six cannibals, to advance on her left flank. 

She spotted them much later than he’d expected her to, she just wasn’t working at full capacity in the arena. Yet.

He watched as she biotically threw the remaining husks away from her and sprinted across the map, searching for two things, cover and distance; enough to give her a chance to fire off some decent shots before they were on her again. For some reason, probably due to that insane ‘Shepard-instinct’ she seemed to possess, he noticed her glancing up at the console box as she passed by.  
A moment later, her voice crackled though their shared comm link.

“Are you programming them up there?” she asked. Even though he couldn’t really see her face from this angle, he would swear he could hear her grinning. 

“I might be,” he replied vaguely, unable to stop his own grin as her laughter echoed through the link. 

He heard the rat-tat-tat of her assault rifle before she dropped back behind cover in order to reload.

“All right Alenko,” she said, slamming another heat sink into her Valkyrie. “Let’s see what you’ve got!” 

And just like that it became a competition.

It became fun.

He left her to deal with the remaining husks and the team of cannibals ambling their way across the map to her position, and pushed himself away from the central console and over to the character programming array.

He was going to have to programme this faster than any hack he’d ever done in his life.

His fingers flew over the keys while he worked, periodically turning his head to see how far though his gang of cannibals she was.

The simulated banshees in the arena were crap. They’d decided that last time they’d had a match. Banshees, real banshees, had a scream that not only chilled you to the bone because you knew what was coming, but it was also so high pitched that the noise alone was a little disorientating. And brutes! Brutes had a swing that could knock you sideways without even touching you, and their muscle and bulk was nearly double the average Krogan. In real life. They weren’t even close to that in the sim. But if he were fast and careful he could have more… realistic enemies to challenge her.  
He put the finishing touches on the new banshee and brute character programmes while Shepard was happily using the last two cannibals for target practice. He pushed himself back to the central console, quickly reaching out to seize its corner and prevent himself going too far. With a wave of his hand and a couple of keystrokes, he repopulated the map, just enough to keep her busy while he positioned his new characters.

First, he added in a particularly large group of husks to box her in. This forced her to back into the corner or be overwhelmed. The corner had two escape routes. He waited, fingers hovering over the keys, attention focused on her and the dwindling number of enemies. When she was down to the last two, he executed the command.

One banshee on her right; she even reeled a little when it screamed. He took a moment to congratulate himself on his programming skills. He saw her glow bright biotic blue for a second as she set a reave on the banshee to slow it while she finished with the husks. Then she ran, seeking the one absolutely essential thing you needed when facing a banshee. Distance.

Sadly, at the stroke of his fingers, she found herself running right into another.

She cursed. A particularly vile example, though not quite as vile as some of the ones he heard her use in the field. Internally, he immediately challenged himself to see if he could correct that.  
She doubled back, seeking one piece of cover that was furthest from both his banshees, dodging their warp fields as she went. Then she camped, unloading everything she had on the first banshee whose shield had been slightly eroded by her reave. He was in no doubt that she was hoping she could defeat the first before the second was on her, then use her cleared escape route to put the necessary distance between her and the second, before taking that one out too.

Which was fine. He had every intention of letting her do that.

But only because he’d been counting her heat sinks.

And only because she’d removed the ‘ammo crates’ from the map.

She crowed in triumph when the first banshee exploded in a shower of holographic light and immediately burst from her cover to sprint across the arena. She finally skidded to a halt behind the largest cover she could find on the other side of the map, and popped her overloaded heat sink from her rifle.

Then she paused.

“Fuck!” she spat. “Out of ammo!”

“Really?” he replied, contriving to sound surprised. “Well. Here. Let me help with that.”

In three keystrokes, he added the brute. Then, for the sake of fairness, he also added a couple of marauders and a smattering of cannibals. After all, they had heat sinks, didn’t they?

She cursed again. This time it was vile enough to be worthy of the real battlefield and he rejoiced in his victory. She pulled the nearest marauder towards her with her biotics, yanked his gun out of his hands, jabbed his throat, kicked him in his stomach and finally finished him off with her blade. It was probably a little messed up just how sexy he found that particular move.

With a grunt, she threw herself back behind cover, ejecting the heat sink from the marauder’s gun and slamming it into her Valkyrie. Then she set to work on the one remaining banshee and the brute.  
Ten minutes later, the VI announced her inevitable victory to a cheering crowd.

She winked up at him from the centre of the map and waved to her adoring crowd, that shit-eating, smug grin spreading across her face.

“Nice try, Alenko,” she said into the comm. “But I win.”

He nodded, even though she probably couldn’t see it.

“For now, Shepard.” He deliberately lowered his voice. “For now.”

After all, there was still the matter of the hot tub to attend to.


End file.
